Game

[MCD]

@Oscar

Do you think Nintendo will build their own OS/Ecosystem, perhaps a fork of Android like Amazon Kindle to counter the mobile war? Or is it too late considering giants like Blackberry are struggling and MS is still playing catchup.

Just wonder if they still have a chance at least in Japan.

[MCD]

I see.

I was thinking maybe they will go solo and have their own branded tablets and phones like Amazon or perhaps the Surface RT but in Japan.

Oh well, considering the kids in my family are content with Minecraft and shooters shooters shooters, I guess it's no big loss seeing them go.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I think Nintendo can still carve out an appreciable niche with a Roku type device.  They have enough stroke where they can get some company, maybe even Roku themselves to have their new games and a controller on their media streaming device(s).  They can sell a separate controller and let people download and play the latest super jumpyman game.  You could also have a Virtual Console setup there as well.  They would be "third party" but it would be largely on their terms and with a deal that lets them have exclusivity on that platform, as well as probably a cut of the sales of the media player itself.

I still think Nintendo will make another console.  It will be even dumber and further behind than the Wii U because Nintendo's response to shrinking marketshare is usually to be more conservative, not less.  Then that will be that for Nintendo consoles.

[Stoney Mason]

If I was a betting man I would say Nintendo is going to try another crack at the console market. If that one fails then its game over but I think it will be almost impossible for them to ignore their history and their tradition. What shape that console will take will be fascinating. Hybrid handheld/console, Partnering with somebody else on it, a retro low tech virtual console machine, a super-duper this is our last chance so we will go out swinging with a power console, etc. I have no idea what form it will take yet.

[Stoney Mason]

While I didn't enjoy owning a Wii I respected the Wii. It really was an attempt at trying something completely different than the paradigm that had existed before. It really had me excited and that's why I bought one. And the first time you played Wii Sports, it really did feel like something absolutely brand new.


The Wii U to me is nothing like that. It's a very cynical weird wanna be console imo. If ever a console kinda deserved to flame out from a design perspective its that one imo.

[headwalk]

those kids who are playing tablets or smart devices right now instead of the consoles/computers we played when we were kids?  What makes anyone think those kids aren't going to just keep on playing on those devices as they grow up?

weird that you group consoles and computers together. computers were the realm of the dad when i was growing up, while today's hottest IPs with kids and young teens are minecraft and league of legends.

[headwalk]

those kids who are playing tablets or smart devices right now instead of the consoles/computers we played when we were kids?  What makes anyone think those kids aren't going to just keep on playing on those devices as they grow up?

weird that you group consoles and computers together. computers were the realm of the dad when i was growing up, while today's hottest IPs with kids and young teens are minecraft and league of legends.

it's possible i'm older than you are, cuz when i was a kid, consoles were pretty well dead and we only had computers if we wanted to play games at home.  definitely not a "dad" thing.  fair point on kids playing a hell of a lot of minecraft/lol these days though.  my main point though is that kids who used to derp around on nintendos are now mostly derping around on tablets and smart devices, and hoping that they'll move over to something else when they get older seems about as wise as hoping kids who grew up on video games would move back to board games when they reached adulthood.

oh yeah, i agree with your wider point. it was just that my personal childhood idea of a computer was a beige monolith that you had to ask their dad to play tie fighter on, whereas today it seems to be the home of the more involved end of the youth gamer demographic.

[Himu]

i can confirm. i always had to ask permission to play a game on computer. the same was true for my friends. we had only one friend who played computer games and we laughed at him and called him old.

[Himu]

i got duke nukem 3d for christmas 96. it kicked ass.

[Stoney Mason]

Atari 400/800, Commodore 64's were family computers that doubled as kids computer consoles. They had as much in common with consoles as computers and the line was blurry.

PC compatibles existed and so did games on them but they were considered Dad's computer back then. That started to shift in the late 80s's early 90's as consoles replaced the Atari and Commodore stuff and the PC compatibles became cheap enough to give to the kids.

At least this is how it happened in America.

[Cerveza mas fina]

First game I remember playing was River Raid on my cousins C64.

[archnemesis]

Maybe I'm too young, but I've never met  any European using an Amiga, Atari, or Commodore computer for anything besides games or music production. Even back then 8086 PCs were available and that's what people were using for work.

[radioheadrule83]

those kids who are playing tablets or smart devices right now instead of the consoles/computers we played when we were kids?  What makes anyone think those kids aren't going to just keep on playing on those devices as they grow up?

weird that you group consoles and computers together. computers were the realm of the dad when i was growing up, while today's hottest IPs with kids and young teens are minecraft and league of legends.

it's possible i'm older than you are, cuz when i was a kid, consoles were pretty well dead and we only had computers if we wanted to play games at home.  definitely not a "dad" thing.  fair point on kids playing a hell of a lot of minecraft/lol these days though.  my main point though is that kids who used to derp around on nintendos are now mostly derping around on tablets and smart devices, and hoping that they'll move over to something else when they get older seems about as wise as hoping kids who grew up on video games would move back to board games when they reached adulthood.

I'm not sure how much 'gaming' kids are actually doing on smart devices. They have tonnes of other stuff they can do on them as well. My nephew for example, he watches cartoons on my sisters tablet and on my Wii U, and I think primarily he sees the tablet as something he can watch something on. But he also knows it can do other stuff -- like we got him a Furby for christmas that interfaces with a tablet app - you feed it via the tablet etc. He loves that. He likes musical toy type apps, things that will distort photos or let you draw... He's also quite taken with using his mum's phone to send snapchats to us during the week, when he doesn't see us... usually just pulling a silly face or saying something daft. I see more teens fiddling away on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Whatsapp than I do playing games. Consoles are trying to get in on this ancillary social stuff, but to this point, its all sort of superfluous and unnecessary when everybody has devices that do those things much quicker. Gaming devices can be functionally better for playing games all they want, but if there's no craze or unique phenomenon to tap in to, I think its going to be harder and harder to pull people away from other forms of quick consumption - certainly for things like handhelds, or casual oriented consoles. And by casual I mean - appeals to mass market (more than just gamers). If I were designing a casual console or interface myself, I'd want it to boot quickly, boot from sleep even quicker, and serve these sorts of services in a fast, efficient way. I think its more important for any console - home or handheld - to have an attractive, marketable USP and positive WOM though.

[MCD]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-25-iwata-isnt-nintendos-problem-its-miyamoto

You guys were hating on the wrong person.

[Fifstar]

Not exactly a new opinion and I believe Nintendo has bigger problems than just the rehashing it's franchises. Also for a gaming only company wouldn't something like the general strategy that they need new IPs be something that the CEO would be responsible for as well? He should be able so see were the (general) problems in the gaming development departments are and if Miyamoto is at fault tell him what to do or appoint somebody else. Would be interesting to know if they have problems with their power structure, espeically after Yamauchi's death.

[Joe Molotov]

Miyamoto hasn't done much of worth in a while, hasn't he?

I picture him puttering around Nintendo HQ in his house shoes, occasionally dropping in on development teams to share some back-in-my-day stories, before leaving to get drunk at 11:00am.

[Eel O'Brian]

Hold up, brb, lemme make this game about measuring shit

[Eel O'Brian]

I still think they'll try a tablet. I believe they could do pretty well with a dockable rig, but the timetable is rapidly shrinking (two years, at best).  I think the 2DS was them dipping a toe in the water with the form factor. Take away that strip of plastic running through the middle and it's basically a really low-powered Fisher Price tablet already.  They could slap a "new" NinTablet together for not much investment. The Hisense I bought at Wal-Mart was only $129, but it's pretty full-featured. It has the Tegra 3 internals of the 2012 N7 with added camera, microSD, and HDMI out. Nintendo will want absolute control of whatever they use for the OS, though, so it'll ending up being some half-assed jank like those old import Android tablets that didn't even have access to Google Play.

[headwalk]

Nintendo will want absolute control of whatever they use for the OS, though, so it'll ending up being some half-assed jank like those old import Android tablets that didn't even have access to Google Play.

maybe they won't, maybe it'll be the big submission to "western business trends" that they just go with a k1 nvidia chip and a fairly light android wrapper with just enough proprietary hardware tweaks to keep the emulators away for 18 months.

for me, that's their best and only bet to retain some hardware distinction and still hold some faint hope for market relevance.

[headwalk]

DP'd harder than when demi met the legion of doom.

[cool breeze]

Miyamoto hasn't done much of worth in a while, hasn't he?

[Great Rumbler]

That was the exact moment where I stopped identifying myself as a Nintendo fan.

[headwalk]

That was the exact moment where I stopped identifying myself as a Nintendo fan.

while i haven't self-identified as a nintendo fan since the early days of the gamecube, this is the precise moment i knew they were done:



(timestamp - 1hr 9m 43s)

[Joe Molotov]

*polite applause*

[cool breeze]

e3 2012 wasn't all bad

[D3RANG3D]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=98670353#post98670353

Queue 100 pages of butthurt.

[Cerveza mas fina]

If Nintendo thinks they will lure customers from ios to 3ds with videos and demos they are in for yet another rude awakening.

Who the fuck is running this company?

[Cerveza mas fina]

They are smoking from the same crackpipe then in this regard.

[Damian79]

https://twitter.com/gibbogame

Iwata is speaking now.  He says they will continue R&d into hardware in the future.

[Joe Molotov]

Iwata bomb zal droppen

[demi]

Lol, dooooooomed.

Please give me X and SMTxFE before you croak

[Damian79]

I am not sure what they could do at this point, the problem is that people bought too MANY Wii U's for them to abandon them.  It isnt like the virtual boy scenario where they sold nothing so they could abandon them easily.  I think they are right to double down on pad because they have to ride out the wave now, may aswell.

[Damian79]

I really dont understand why a price drop is not an option though.   Finally Nintendo ID's lol.

[Takao]

I really dont understand why a price drop is not an option though.   Finally Nintendo ID's lol.

They're still losing money on each Wii U sold.

[bachikarn]

What’s Mr. Iwata going to focus on for the next 10 years? The main theme: enhancing the quality of life through entertainment. The key word is health, Mr. Iwata says. Citing a flood of wearable devices already on the market, he says Nintendo is trying out something completely new: non-wearables to monitor your health.

[bachikarn]

Summary:

Wii U
- The problem is that people think it's an accessory for Wii
- They can't cut the price
- The Gamepad needs to be emphasized more
- The first game to emphasize the Gamepad will be Mario Kart 8, which uses off-tv play
- They will announce NFC games at E3.

General Direction
- No major changes in company's direction
- Further hardware R&D will continue
- They won't release games on other peoples platforms, including mobile
- They want to have a platform where the platform is not the device, but rather the user (IE integrated over multiple hardware platforms)
- They are considering a streaming service
- They have solved technical hurdles related to Virtual Consoles
- They will license characters to new partners -- it's unclear if this means merchandise or games

QUACK ZONE WARNING QUACK ZONE
- Nintendo wants to get into health care and wellness and lifestyle products
- They want to improve your quality of life
- This has nothing to do with games
- They want to announce ways to make you healthy
- This will not involve wearable devices because there are too many of those.
- This is integrated with games
- This will launch in April 2015

[cool breeze]

the big plan involves those fitness bracelets?

[Takao]

the plan for profitability lies in an unrelated market.  good jon, iwata.

works well enough for sega and konami

[hampster]

Well there are a lot of fat kids out there...

[Takao]

DS games are going to look rough on a TV. The 3D ones already looked ugly on the machine.

[Positive Touch]

all aboard the u.s.s. whimsy!

[cool breeze]

are smart watches popular enough for nintendo to copy in two years? 

[Great Rumbler]

Nintendo should go back to managing love hotels.

[brob]

Gamify fitness. Nabbit's superguide for your work-out routine. 

[Pringo]

are smart watches popular enough for nintendo to copy in two years?

Nah, they said they want to leapfrog the wearable stuff. Into what exactly seems unknown.

[Takao]

"3DS dominates in Japan so 3rd party want to develop for, overseas console dominates with developers focused on console and not portable"
"But thinks with 3DS having 10m installed base developers are more interested, WiiU rebound will see 3rd party follow"

So your strategy to get third party support is to try to sell more Wii Us and then hope those studios drop their PS4/XB1 or Mobile games in favour of developing on it?

[Takao]

are smart watches popular enough for nintendo to copy in two years?

Nah, they said they want to leapfrog the wearable stuff. Into what exactly seems unknown.

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfMUd-qCQAE7wfh.jpg[img]

http://www.thebore.com/forum/index.php?topic=36618.msg1814260#msg1814260

[bachikarn]

Nintendo's third party strategy:
Wii U will rebound, and 3rd party devs will follow.

[Human Snorenado]

FUCK. The day after we record a Cruncheons. Oh well.

[D3RANG3D]

FUCK. The day after we record a Cruncheons. Oh well.

[bachikarn]

"WiiU sales while weak in USA or UK they were strong in France and currently studying why that was the case"

Do we have any French boreans?

They also announced they are going to put out wallpapers on mobile? fucking lol

[Huff]

non-wearables. what the fuck does that mean

nanomachines

[Raban]

He's talking about injectables. Get that whimsy straight into the bloodstream.

[Yeti]

Snortables. Lickables. Fuckables.

[Raban]

Nintendo said they want to get into the health business, right? Maybe they'll just sell you pills that'll get you all fucked up on whimsy. Dr. Luigi's got something for you

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I think this is fucking hilarious myself.  I suspect that Iwata believes that they don't really need to make any real changes because they think that Mario Kart 8 and Smash Brothers 4 will really turn things around for them.  In the meantime, the Wii U continues to flatline.  Pretty soon third parties aren't even going to bother with token ports but it isn't like Nintendo gives a shit about that anyway.

[cool breeze]

non-wearables. what the fuck does that mean

nanomachines

Use your imagination

I'm playing Startropics 3 right now

[AdmiralViscen]

I think this is fucking hilarious myself.  I suspect that Iwata believes that they don't really need to make any real changes because they think that Mario Kart 8 and Smash Brothers 4 will really turn things around for them.  In the meantime, the Wii U continues to flatline.  Pretty soon third parties aren't even going to bother with token ports but it isn't like Nintendo gives a shit about that anyway.

I think this already happened. What third party ports exist aside from watch dogs and Lego games for 2014?

[headwalk]

are smart watches popular enough for nintendo to copy in two years?

Nah, they said they want to leapfrog the wearable stuff. Into what exactly seems unknown.

(Image removed from quote.)

haha, they included wii music.

[Tasty]

They're looking into streaming services like Gaikai and that combined with their desire to unify development platforms tells me their next console might just be streaming-only, probably with the same hardware power as their next handheld. Then you play the same games on either.

However they need to GET A FUCKING ACCOUNT SYSTEM before then.